


It Almost Makes You Forget We’re in a Video Game

by mOther3



Category: OFF (Game)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, I know there are probably a million Zacharie unmasking fics but here’s my take, That part where Zacharie tells you you’re in a game in zone 2, curious batter, i know Zacharie is a human but like.. what if he wasnt, mild depictions of injuries, now with illustration, uhh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-13
Updated: 2018-05-13
Packaged: 2019-05-06 10:12:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14639685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mOther3/pseuds/mOther3
Summary: Sometimes awful things happen. But that’s okay. Even if it feels real, it’s just a game.





	It Almost Makes You Forget We’re in a Video Game

**Author's Note:**

> I watched OFF for the first time recently (I know, I know) and this sort of happened.
> 
> Also I wrote this at 2am so the tenses are all over the place oops

Sunset. Pink. Same as always, but still beautiful.

Any moment now, he’d climb up the ladder and stare with those empty eyes, bat slung across his left shoulder, hat at an angle and soaked with sweat from ceaseless purification.

Just as the script said he would.

Zacharie knew he’d be here. He wasn’t just following the Batter just for the thousands of credits he’d drop on equipment in the blink of an eye... It’d been like that at first, but now it was morbid curiosity driving the merchant to follow the divine sportsman through his quest.

Who was this man? Who just showed up and earned the trust of Pablo so quickly? Who could strike down spirits, burnt Elsen, and even.. Dedan like it was nothing.

“Oh. Hello.” The Batter’s placid voice breaks his train of thought. If it wasn’t for the mask he was wearing, maybe the batter would know that he’d startled Zacharie. He probably knew despite it.

“Heh. Hey there, amigo.”

He took a step back as the Batter reached the top of the ladder and stood at his full height, more than three heads above Zacharie.

“... If you’re here, I must be close.” the human continued, staring him right in the eyes.

“That’s how it goes...” he starts. The Batter has gotten keen to the merchant’s patterns of appearing before difficult purifications. “But I’m also here because of the view. Isn’t it nice up here? Almost makes you forget we’re in a video game-“

That made the Batter react. Zacharie clapped a hand over his mouth and stared nervously, trying to read the other’s difficult expressions.

His eyebrows raise, for once. The slightest semblance of an emotion crossing his face. Shock maybe, surprise at the least. His lips part momentarily as his dark, empty eyes scan the nervous masked man before him.

“We’re _what_.”

He says it quietly, with a different tone of voice than usual.

“... In a video game, my friend.” Zacharie can’t think of any other way to get out of this without risking being purified than telling the truth in a joking sort of way. Maybe the Batter would pass it off as another one of his cryptic eccentricities.

“I see. Are you the only one that is aware of this..?” The batter asks him cautiously, clearly spending some time choosing his words. Zacharie shuffles his feet, suddenly far more interested in the floor than the fact that he could be a simulation.

“I... really don’t know. I just don’t take things too seriously anymore ‘cause of it.”

He looks up, sensing movement from the ever hard-to-read Batter. His expression softens ever so slightly and he lets the worn bat he’s carrying slip to his side.

Safe.

Today, Zacharie wouldn’t be purified.

“Before you get to the top, would you like to watch the sunset, my dear friend?” The Batter quickly slips back into his usual aloof gaze and stares for a moment.

“Yes. I would.”

Sitting this close to the Batter feels more dangerous than the fact that he’s sitting on the edge of a building more than twenty stories tall. He’s acutely aware of the mask on his face and the feeling of the breeze against the skin underneath, desperately hoping that from this angle, maybe the human would not be able to see any more than he had before. But he felt this was necessary. Even though it wasn’t on the script, Zacharie felt that showing the Batter something _pure_ like the sunset would maybe earn some trust between them.

“Your mask.”

Zacharie’s breath caught in his throat.

“Why do you wear it.”

He turned to face the Batter, who’s still staring out over the zone in a contemplative way, “Heh. Unless you’re willing to answer one of my questions, that information is off limits.”

There’s a long silence before the Batter nods slowly.

“Okay. Ask.”

Zacharie stares for a moment in disbelief. What had gotten into the human!

“Um. Right. I want to know your name. And not just the name of whoever’s in charge of you.”

The Batter makes a small scoffing noise before responding, “It’s of no consequence.”

“I guess you don’t get to see my face then.”

“...”

“Go on.” Zacharie turned to face him again.

“My name is Hugo.” The Batter responded curtly, moving a hand to grab the bottom of Zacharie’s mask. Instead, he’s swatted away and the merchant stepped back.

“Whoa there, amigo. I’ll show you when I’m ready. I just want to make sure that you’re not gonna freak out on me, eheheh.” He watched Hugo nervously, eyeing his bat that’s stained with remains of corrupted Elsen. “And remember. It’s all just a game.”

With that, Hugo nodded and Zacharie brought his hands to the cloth tied together around the back of his head.

The mask dropped with a quiet clatter.

“Here I am, my dear Hugo.”

The Batter looked up at him from his perch on the edge of the library and his brows shot up, eyes opening wider.

His gaze is met with burnt flesh, scarred over and disfigured from Zacharie’s left cheek to the top of his forehead oh the right. One of his eyes is clouded and swollen. Blind. His thick ashy hair’s plastered to his forehead and nearly covers his blind eye. It’s not the usual thin silvery wisps the other residents of the zones have.

The other eye—a look the Batter had seen all across the now pure zone 1. The look of a frightened Elsen. Innocent, but so weary and devastatingly saddening all at once. His quiet grey iris followed the twitches of movement as the human reacted.

Hugo’s hand moved to the handle of his bat. Impure masked merchant... a sickly half-burnt Elsen with nerves of steel.

“Wait. Amigo.”

His confident voice is all but a frightened rasping now that his mask is gone. The poor creature holds its gloved hands (they were probably also badly burnt) out in a desperate attempt to seek mercy. Hugo realizes what he’s doing and drops his weapon with a start, “You were hiding your impurities. How did you survive being burnt.”

The trembling Elsen takes a hand to his burnt face and sighs. He can’t bring himself to laugh.

“The others would panic if they saw me. You know that. You know how they are.”

“That should not matter to you. This is simply a game, as you have said.” The Batter started, lifting the mask off the ground and examining it closely.

“Game or not, I’m burnt.” Zacharie began, “Somehow, I’m alive. Still me.”

He laughed wheezily, pulling a bit at his messy hair until a rough hand met his own and clasped it so he couldn’t fidget anymore. Instead, he held onto the human close.

“It’s just a game. But I must go and take care of my holy duties. Thank you, Zacharie.” Hugo is looking right at him. The setting sun cast a delicate pink across his face, erasing the usual grim demeanor from his battle hardened features.

“Hugo...” Zacharie started, trying not to meet the human’s gaze. “Um.. you’re welcome... but.. why didn’t you..”

He looked to the stained bat. Hugo could tell what he’s trying to ask.

“You are pure. For now.”

Hugo said nothing more and pushed the mask into the Elsen’s hands, moving onwards to the next ladder.

Zacharie simply watched him climb the ladder as the evening light cast a long, spindly shadow of the human’s moving body across the rooftop.

_pure._

**Author's Note:**

> I named the Batter Hugo because I felt that it would make the eventual encounter with his son that much more sad. A son who’s killed by the man he was named after.. think about that for a bit.
> 
> I also refer to him as human because you’d kind of want to keep the fact that you’re actually a vicious hellbeast under wraps, right? Maybe I’ll write a follow up to this where he reveals himself. Maybe. 
> 
> Also it took me forever to wrangle that picture in. please appreciate it..


End file.
